The Black Tree
by SilverDrama
Summary: Alternate Universe  Charlotte has a past she'd rather hide. A Black past. The tale of a girl, a war, a descent into darkness, and all the fun found on the road to hell.
1. The Man Behind Bars

The Black Tree

Written By: SilverDrama

Adapted from the fanfiction: The Adventures of Charlotte Black: The Legacy

Author's Note: Okay, so I've written this note about a million times since I claimed hiatus in the middle of my eighth grade. I would like to take this moment to say that while I am a lazy writer, please rest assured any readers who are still reading this, I doubt there are, that Charlotte has never for one day left my mind. She has, however changed. This is a warning. If you are attached to the old Charlotte, this may not be for you. (PS. I'm a senior in high school now…wow time flies, I meant to rewrite this ages ago)

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><p>Chapter One: The Man Behind Bars<p>

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><p>She stared at the man across from her. His beard was scruffy and rather overgrown. He was the picture of insanity. His eyes were slightly off, only slightly, but still off. Her gray eyes matched his in color, but they were happier. She had not experienced life as he had; not yet. Her hair had once matched his ebony locks too, but with care, her hair was now a smooth peroxide blonde. He assumed it was her mother's influence.<p>

There was silence between the two. There was normally a lot of silence between the two, actually, but today, for some reason, it troubled the man. This girl was all of the non-silence -that wasn't panicked screams- that he got; he liked it when they were talking. It vaguely reminded him of a time he missed, a time before all of this, a time before mind splitting depression, a time before solitude, a time before Azkaban. He had friends once, and the little girl sitting in front of him reminded him of that time when he had friends, back when he was as school.

"When do you start school?" He managed to croak out as his mind brushed over the topic.

The girl looked up. She was almost startled that the silence was broken. She pushed a piece of her long blonde hair out of her face. "Em, this year I think. Haven't gotten my letter though."

"You're old enough to go this year?" He asked, almost shocked. He hadn't realized that much time has passed. She was four when she first visited him – three years into his life sentence. She had to be eleven now. Had seven years really gone by since the little ebony curled toddler visited him for the first time? He remembered _that_ day perfectly.

"_You have a visitor." The guard said shortly. This particular guard hardly dealt with inmates well. _

_The guard unlocked the door and led him down into a small and cramped room. There was a desk with chairs on either side. He was sat on the side closest to the door he came through. _

_As he sat down, the door on the other side opened. He was shocked by who came in the door. It was his mother. And trust him; he did not get along at all well with his mother. He hadn't seen her since he was about fifteen or sixteen-he couldn't quite remember which. Trailing after his mother was her granddaughter. Her hair was to her shoulders and in tight black curls. His mother sat the toddler in the seat across from him, bowed her head towards him, and left. _

_He was alone with the little girl, the infamous little girl in his life. The only person he would see for the next two years-his only company._

_She could barely peer over the table with her short height, but she managed. "So you're my dad?" She asked curiously. There was a desperation in her voice. A type of longing, as though she had been waiting quite a while to meet one of her parents. Her eyes-her gray eyes-lit up as she looked at him._

_He looked at the child. Sometimes while he was in prison, he wished she _was_ his child, like her birth certificate said. She wasn't though. She was his brothers', but that was too complicated of a matter. So instead, he just nodded. _

"I'm ten now." The girl said to him.

He paused for a moment. "You go to Hogwarts when you're-."

"Eleven, I know." She cut him off. "I'll be eleven in a week."

He nodded. She'll be eleven? She was a year old when he was put in this hell hole. Had he really spent almost the last decade of his life in here?

"Time's up." The guard announced.

The prisoner nodded and got up to go back to his cell.

The girl stood up from the table and before she left, she looked at the man behind bars.

"Bye Sirius."

And she left.

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><p>Libby was twirling a piece of her blonde hair in her fingers. "Where is she?" She began standing on her tip toes as she complained to Louis.<p>

Louis took a sip of his butterbeer as he tried to ignore Libby. She wasn't having _that_ at all though. "Come on, you two used to be like siblings, you know her better than anyone."

Louis gave her an odd look as he put his drink down and straightened his blazer. "Okay, Libby, try and understand this as I explain this to you for the fiftieth time. Charlotte and I have never, and will never, be siblings. We were step-cousins a few years ago when my uncle and her mother were married. We aren't actually related and we haven't lived in the same household since that French villa in the summer of '87."

"Regardless," whined Libby, "she should be here by now. I specifically told her to be here at noon, and it's," Libby glanced down at her golden watch, "almost 1:00."

Louis put a finger to Libby's lips. "I have a headache, shut up. She'll be here when she gets here."

"Thank you master of the freaking obvious," Libby snapped before storming off to find someone else to complain to. Maybe Teddy…

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><p>Constantine Megalos no longer understood what was enticing about the idea of marriage. He wasn't a loveless shrew, far from it, he was a husband. He was a husband married to the most sinister, selfish, and vain woman the universe had ever met. She was also one of the most sexual beings <em>he<em> had ever met. While that had once been the thing that had attracted him to the woman in the first place, it wasn't so appealing when his wife was having blatant affairs.

Constantine considered divorce a lot, but there were children to think about. Not his children –no, he would never have children- but rather _her_ children. She had a ten year old daughter, eight year old twins (a girl and a boy), a six year old girl, and a four year old girl. Constantine admittingly was attached to the children. Well, except the six year old; there was something in her eyes that unsettled him, but still, he tried to be nice.

There was a crash from the room above him. He began thinking about the house's floor plan. Above the parlour was the … master bedroom! So it was his wife making a ruckus. He was too lazy –and to be frank, too tipsy– to care about what was going on up there. It sounded like glass breaking, so he figured it was just a liquor bottle, and Eleanor could figure that out on her own.

There was another crash, this time from the ground floor. It was a completely different sound. It wasn't the sound of colliding wood and glass; it was the sound of a door slamming shut.

"Mum!" A curious young girl's voice drifted up the staircase into the parlour.

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and suddenly Constantine came face to face with the young girl as she ran past the stairs into the parlour. It was his ten year old step-daughter: Charlotte.

Charlotte wasn't her real name, but she threw extreme fits if anyone referred to her as anything else. (He couldn't blame her, she had the longest name he'd ever heard).

"Constantine, have you seen my mum?" Charlotte asked as she jumped around impatiently she looked ready to run off, but without any direction, her body was merely gaining speed without moving anywhere.

"I think she's in her room," Constantine said. Charlotte made a move out the door, but Constantine cut her off, "I think she spilled a perfume or something," he lied, "so you might not want to bother her at the moment."

Charlotte nodded obediently and trudged back into the parlour. If Eleanor was in a bad mood, it did no one any good asking her of anything.

She looked back at Constantine, "You know, I _do_ know my mother was drinking. You don't have to hide it from me."

Constantine nodded and slowly pushed the gin that he had in his hand behind him.

"And you don't have to hide that from me either. It's not a big deal."

Constantine shook his head, but ignored the issue. "So what do you need your mother for?"

Charlotte's eyes lit up as she remembered. "I need these navy and tangerine striped heels because Libby gave them to me to wear to her mother's show and if I don't have them, she'll murder me, and I wouldn't make a beautiful corpse without those shoes." She whined in a fast pace. It was pretty common that she whined. Out of all of Eleanor's children, Charlotte whined the most. She even whined more than four year old Grace. Eventually, his mind numbed to her whining.

"Did you check your closet?" He asked her.

Charlotte gave him an unimpressed look. "Which one of them?"

That was right, the ten year old had a ridiculous number of large closets….she had that much clothing. In fact, he was sure she had more closets than his parents had bedrooms.

"Under your bed?" He guessed.

"Spotless," she replied.

"Emily's room?"

"Scoured and investigated." She smiled with almost an evil glint in her eyes.

"With your au pair?"

Her eyes lit up and Charlotte ran off instantly, "Thank you!" She yelled out from behind her.

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><p>Libby was almost jumping up and down as her older sister tried tying the bow on the back of her dress. "I am going to kill her. Where is she?" Her voice was frantic and her body was shaking so much that she kept ruining the bow her sister was tying. Mary-Jane, her elder sister, wasn't worried so much about the bow as she was worried that Libby might wrinkle the fabric. She put her hands on Libby's waist and held her down.<p>

"Calm down, or I'll jab you with a pinning needle." She threatened holding up the pin cushion to make her point clearer.

Libby gulped and nodded and she stopped shaking, which meant that the tension went towards anger and her porcelain face started to turn as red as a tomato. "I wish Marco had taught me to fight before he left for Germany, because I want to kick her-."

Mary-Jane cut her off, "Charlotte!"

Libby looked up, almost embarrassed, at where Mary-Jane was looking. She saw the one, the only, Charlotte Black, her dead best friend.

She looked at Charlotte with an angry scowl. "You should go shopping for caskets." She announced.

Charlotte gave her an odd look. "Why? You can't murder me. You'll get the shoes bloody."

"No, you should buy a casket for our friendship. It's dead to me." She said extremely haughtily and seriously.

Mary-Jane burst out into laughter. "Are you serious, Libby? Stop being so melodramatic and don't play with your hair." She pulled Libby's hands from her head of hair. "It'll fall out if you do that."

Mary-Jane tucked the pin cushion back into the sewing box and left the room.

After Mary-Jane left, Libby turned her head to Charlotte. "Where were you?" She was breaking up her syllables as she spoke.

"Well I was having problems finding the shoes…" She trailed off.

Libby's eyes flared up. "You _lost_ them?" She screamed.

Charlotte looked at her almost bemused. She pointed to her feet. "Do they look lost? Geesh, get a grip. I lost them for five minutes. And the reason I'm late is because it's Wednesday and I was visiting _him_."

Libby's face softened. That changed everything.

"Oh, sorry. I guess I forgot." She knew about Sirius. Charlotte had told her a few months ago why Wednesdays were bad days. "Um," she was nervous. "You wanna go give the shoes back to my mom and see if she doesn't kill us in time to watch the show?" She smiled, trying to lighten up the mood.

Charlotte nodded enthusiastically and pulled the shoes off before she and Libby went running to find Molly Moon.

Molly –Libby's mother refused to be referred to as a Mrs. ("You make me sound old, Charlotte!")- hardly even noticed the shoes were gone and the evening went down very well. Anorexic girls walked down a runway wearing clothes whose price could put most of the magical community into poverty, and Charlotte and Libby watched from backstage, giggling the entire time.

"Cheers." The two clicked champagne glasses.

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><p>By the time Charlotte got home, it was past midnight and she was the only one home. She liked her house like this. Quiet, still, and comfortable. Charlotte went into the kitchen and grabbed an apple and took a bite out of it. She went and sat down at the breakfast nook. She began flipping through the mail that had come in. There was a lot of mail, but that was common.<p>

Grace's dad would write to her, Victoria-Rose's grandmother always sent her postcards from whatever country she was in, Emily and Dominic had a pen-pal in Canada, and then Constantine got an assortment of mail from relatives and friends. Charlotte got occasional letters from her ex step-brother and her best friend, and then there was no place to begin describing how much mail Eleanor got.

Most of the pile had been depleted. Grace had already attempted to read her letter from her dad (and Charlotte was sure that once Grace gave up on reading it, Constantine read it to her). Eleanor had moved most of her mail as well. As Charlotte flipped through the mail, she found a letter from Canada, two from Constantine's mother, a bill Eleanor didn't want to pay, a postcard from Madrid, and then Charlotte hit her mail.

There was a postcard for her from Blaise (Greetings From Italy!)

_Char,  
>Italy's lame. France was<br>much better. Anyway,  
>have you talked to Teddy<br>lately? Do you know  
>which school he picked?<br>I hope he was kidding  
>about Durmstrang. He<br>doesn't even speak the  
>language. Mum says hi.<br>-Blaise_

Charlotte threw the postcard on the table –she intended to pin it to the board she had of all their other postcards- and kept flipping through. And then she found them. She threw the rest of the mail aside and carefully picked up four envelopes. She nervously spread them across the table and muttered to herself, "Oh shit."

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><p>Post-Script Note: Um, so Charlotte's last line there is exactly what I thought as I finished this chapter. Three years of hiatus and I'm done. There's no more revisions. I know what I'm writing. Oh, and the tone of this story will change. It won't be girls freaking out over shoes all of the time, I swear. It covers way better things than shoes. And if I'm posting this, then it has Sprinkles' approval!<p>

-Silver


	2. Blaze

Author's Note: Words will never describe the pain this chapter was. I had almost 4000 words written when I realized it was full of pointless scenes, trimmed it down to 1000, and restarted. Then I added back the beginning scene and had to figure out how to end the chapter. Looks like it's going to be short of 3000, oh well. And the chapter of this title is a two way meaning. Obviously, it's pronounced the same as Blaise, but it's also for something at the end. Oh, and I'm perfectly aware that the French comes out pretty bad in translation. Charlotte is ten, Blaise is eleven, and neither one ever took time to learn it that well, so it's the result of bad translation. Thanks to Sprinkles for editing again (I'm atrocious at editing).

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><p>Chapter Two: Blaze<p>

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><p>"You got into all four?" Blaise spat his pumpkin juice out. "How? I heard Alice Whitehall had to beg just to get into Salem. And that's <em>Salem,<em>" he emphasized as though there were a point to be proven.

Charlotte, revolted by Blaise spitting out his drink, was wiping it off her arm. "Gross, Blaise," she noted. She then looked up once she was finished wiping the juice off. "And I'm not sure. All I know is I have four acceptance letters to four different wizarding schools, reasons to go to each, and two weeks to decide," she groaned and then proceeded to bang her head on the table.

Blaise tried stopping her and eventually held her head with his hands from across the table. "Stop. If you get a concussion, your mother will sue me, and I really don't want to be up against your mother. She has better lawyers than I do."

Charlotte sat up and sullenly took a bite out of her sandwich. "You know, it's not fair. Teddy's already mixed up by choosing between Hogwarts and Durmstrang, and then the universe decides to see what it takes to drive me insane by making me get into all of them!"

Blaise chuckled and said,"Stop being so dramatic."

"So if I go to Salem, I get to go to school somewhere where people haven't heard anything of my family and where there's a lot of people rather than a small school," she argued.

Blaise argued back, "But you'd be going to school with _Americans_."

The chair next to Blaise was pulled back and a boy sat down. He was a tall boy with almost no meat on his bones. He was thin and had feathered brown hair that barely covered the top of his floppy ears. His face was narrow and his eyes were a soft blue. He was wearing a pair of khakis, a red polo shirt, and a navy blazer. "That's bad enough, but imagine, Charlotte," the boy said, "you'd be dealing with all the losers who couldn't get into Hogwarts." He paused and added, "Which is why _I_ am glad that I got into Durmstrang," he boasted as he stole a sip of Charlotte's drink.

Charlotte snatched the drink back from him and took a big gulp of the butterbeer, enjoying the slightly nauseating taste. She lifted up an envelope addressed to herself and handed it to the boy. He began looking it over. "So did I, Teddy," she said and then took another drink before taking in his appearance.

"What the fuck are you wearing anyway?" She gestured to the polo.

Blaise, who was always clueless, turned to look at what his friend was wearing. "What is that?"

Teddy, trying to shy away from the topic, picked up another of Charlotte's acceptance letters. He feigned excitement, "You got into all four, how amazing!" He picked up the Beauxbatons letter. "I wonder if what Remy's dad said about French girls and beaches is tr-OW!" Charlotte smacked him.

"Answer the question!" She yelled at him in a high pitched voice.

"Okay, okay.", he said, straightening out his blazer. "So my dad may or may not have forced me to go have an interview lunch with a Durmstrang alumnae." He tried trailing off without fanfare, but his friends were not that kind.

Charlotte and Blaise burst out into laughter. "You had a social climber lunch?" Blaise asked, astonished.

"And I thought _my_ mum was bad," Charlotte laughed.

After Charlotte and Blaise sobered from the laughter, they glanced back at Teddy, who looked far from amused.

"I hate you two," he mumbled.

"Love you too, Teddy," Charlotte sang in a high voice. Her voice went back to normal two seconds later as she asked, "Wait, you're actually going to Durmstrang? You don't speak Russian, you can't go there. Nobody will understand you."

Teddy looked rather confused. "Durmstrang's in Norway."

Charlotte shook her head and she and Blaise looked at each other. "No," Charlotte said. "It's in Russia."

Blaise stared at her and shook his head. "No, it-it's in Sweden."

"No," Charlotte insisted, and the two began to argue over which country it was in.

"It's in Norway. I'm positive," Teddy snapped at them.

Charlotte and Blaise stopped arguing, neither fully trusting him..

Charlotte looked back up at Teddy, "But you don't know Norwayan either."

"It's Norwegian," Blaise told her.

Without missing a beat or turning her head: "You don't speak Norwegian," she said, pretending to have not messed up.

"Yeah, I do," Teddy argued back passively.

"What?" Charlotte questioned. "When?" She turned to Blaise to see if he knew the answer. He didn't.

Teddy answered back in a tone that meant the two should have already known. "When I was seven and visited my grandparents in Norway."

"Oh," Charlotte muttered.

Blaise, "Yeah."

"That was the summer we went to France," Charlotte remembered.

"Je me souviens de cela. Nous faufilé dans l'appartement de cette vieille dame et sa peur," Blaise said, speaking in French.

Charlotte laughed, "C'est vrai! Elle a appelé les flics moldus sur nous."

This was a common game. When Teddy irritated them or pointed out that they were wrong, they would start speaking in French. Teddy had always wanted to learn the language, but his father wouldn't let him.

"Ma mère était tellement en colère contre nous," Blaise said back.

As Teddy couldn't speak the language he didn't understand their choppy French version of an anecdote in which they got in trouble for sneaking into someone's apartment in Versailles.

Charlotte agreed with Blaise, "La mienne aussi."

Blaise turned nostalgic, "Je m'ennuie de l'époque."

Teddy's face turned red with anger. "Speak English!" He demanded.

Charlotte and Blaise giggled.

"It's not like we can even speak the language that well," Charlotte argued.

"What were you talking about?" Teddy asked.

"Um," Blaise faltered, "secret plans to take over the world."

"That," Charlotte assured as she took a sip of her drink.

Teddy looked at them with a blank face. "Sometimes I wish you two didn't joke so much. And anyway, yes, I do speak Norwegian. No, it's not even the language they give lectures in, and that doesn't matter, I'm going because," he paused and took in a breath, "Draco's going there."

Blaise sniggered. "You're following _Malfoy_ to school? You have horrible taste; you know that right?"

"And besides," Charlotte pointed out, "Malfoy's not even going there. His mum won't let him. She doesn't want him too far away from home."

Teddy fidgeted awkwardly. "My dad doesn't want me away from family," he admitted

Charlotte had a confused look on her face, "But your dad's trying to send you to Durmstrang, which is in _Norway_, apparently."

"Which is near my grandparents," Teddy pointed out.

Charlotte looked down, filled with what could almost be called guilt, when her eyes flickered to the petite diamond watch on her wrist. "Merlin, I'm late!" Charlotte sprang up from her chair and grabbed her bag. "I'm going to be killed for being late."

"How many times have you been late to stuff this week?" Blaise called out after her. He turned back to see Teddy eating a sandwich. "Why are you eating that?"

"She's not going to eat it now," he defended himself.

"She wouldn't have eaten it anyway, it's mine," Blaise grabbed the sandwich and took a huge bite out of it.

"Remy! Let me in!" Charlotte banged on the door of the Quidditch Supplies Shop. Her ex-stepfather was a broom designer and he had a launch party for his new broom model. She told him she would be there for him, partly because she was really close to him, partly because she liked brooms, but mostly because it was a reason to get out of family lunch. "Remy!"

The door opened suddenly. It wasn't Remy, it was Louis. "Shh," he shushed her and then nodded his head inside.

Louis was speaking to her in whispers. "Why are you late?"

"I was having lunch with Blaise and Teddy and I forgot the time. Sorry."

Louis shook his head. "You're not that late, but Uncle Jacques is having a panic attack."

Charlotte rolled her eyes, "Typical Dad. He creates the coolest broom in the past five years and he thinks he screwed it up."

"Don't call him 'Dad,' he's not your dad anymore," Louis corrected her with a sour tone.

"What was is it he told he me after my mom and him got divorced?" She asked facetiously. "Oh that's right! You divorce wives, not children." She grinned cockily at him.

"Charlotte, is that you?" The boy that came down the hall to find Charlotte and Louis was sixteen, tall, and athletic looking. He was visually pleasing and judging by the neatly pressed pair of slacks and emerald button up shirt he was wearing, one could tell his style was wonderful. If Remy hadn't been her step-brother once, Charlotte may have found herself swooning over him. It _was_ rather hard, however, to crush on someone who used to put spiders under your pillow.

Charlotte nodded, giving Remy a toothy grin. "Sorry I'm late."

He shook his head and his blonde shaggy hair –which Charlotte personally thought was in need of a haircut- flailed around everywhere. "Nonsense. Don't let Louis try and guilt you, you're just fine."

As Remy turned a corner in the hallway, Charlotte laughed silently at Louis before turning the corner and catching up with Remy.

Charlotte attempted to maintain stillness. Remaining still was a skill her mother had tried to force into her arsenal from an early age. Standing still at important functions prevented unwanted attention; at least, that was what her mother said. Keeping her mother's words in mind, she tried to stay still during the press conference that Jacques –her ex step-father– was leading because of his new design.

The most important thing about Jacques was that he was a broom designer. He had been the crucial member to designing the new broom, the Nimbus 2000. It was the fastest broom on the market and Charlotte, who was more than interested, had to resist the urge to stand on her tiptoes to get a better view of it. She really liked flying, at least, whenever she had flown in the past, she had found the process fun. She hadn't played Quidditch in a very long time -since she was eight and her mother had dated a Quidditch player.

Her mother didn't want her playing the game; she didn't even like Charlotte riding a broom. Those were unladylike actions.

"Stop fidgeting," one of Louis's sisters hissed into her ear.

Charlotte nodded softly and attempted to listen to Jacques and the reporters.

"Sir," a reporter began. He was dressed in a blue suit with an oversized bow tie. "Do you think the Nimbus 2000 will be outperformed by another broom anytime soon?"

Jacques laughed and answered, "I should hope so."

There was a look of curiosity amongst the reporters and Charlotte watched as a woman with light blonde hair raised a hand and asked, "Why do you say that?" Her voice was high, but bold. She stared at Jacques intensely.

He smirked and responded, "Well, I would hope I'd be the one making it."

The reporters laughed and the blonde one scribbled furiously into her notebook.

After the frenzy of pictures, Louis pulled Charlotte aside. "You okay?" He asked, noting her gloomy face as she stared at a broomstick.

Charlotte shrugged. "I just have a lot on my mind," she said as she checked the statistics on a two year old Cleansweep.

"Like what?"

Charlotte reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the stack of parchment. She handed them to Louis and he flipped through each letter.

"All four?" He asked her, almost in awe. "Seriously?"

Charlotte grabbed the parchments back from Louis and nodded softly. She looked at him with innocent eyes. "What do you think I should do?" She asked.

Louis shrugged and walked towards another display case. "I'm not really good at these types of decisions, if memory serves."

"It does," she said quietly. Louis hadn't been given a choice. Even though most of his sisters did go to Hogwarts, he had been the first person in his family to not get accepted into Beauxbatons.

Charlotte closed the front door slowly and tried to tiptoe up the stairs without being noticed.

"Where were you?" Charlotte turned to peek over the banister and saw her brother sitting in the living room trying to play chess with his tutor.

"Dominic, I had to do something with Jacques. Family stuff." She fidgeted a bit before deciding to go into the living room and sit next to Dominic. The eight year old was seamlessly focused on the chessboard. He moved a bishop down to the other side of the board.

"Check," he said monotonously to his tutor. He then turned to Charlotte. "_We_ are your family and you missed brunch again.. Mother wasn't happy."

Charlotte sighed as she watched Dominic's tutor take out his bishop with a rook. "Remember, chess players think five steps ahead," she chastised.

Dominic turned a glare to her and moved his queen to take his tutor's queen, which had been left open. "Check mate," he declared angrily.

"Where's Constantine?" Charlotte asked.

Dominic shrugged, but the tutor answered. "He went out."

Charlotte nodded and then went to go upstairs, but was interrupted by Dominic as the boy reset the chess board. "You have a visitor in the billiard."

Charlotte nodded again and went up the stairs and to the right where she entered the great billiard room.

"Draco, what are you doing here?" Charlotte asked, almost disappointed at the sight of her blonde cousin.

Draco Malfoy was perched on an ivory sofa, staring at the fireplace and the roaring fire inside of it. "Did you really get into all four?" He asked, gazing at her with a level of interest just above his normal amount.

"How in the world do you know that?" She asked as she took a seat in a neighboring chair, throwing her legs over the armrest. She sat up slightly. "Did Blaise tell you?" She accused.

"Teddy," Draco admitted.

"If that's why you're here, you should leave," she dictated as she swung her legs off of the chair and walked over to the bar.

Draco shook his head, though as Charlotte wasn't facing him, she didn't see it. "Of course not."

Charlotte's fingers traced over the glass figure of the crystal bottles before she began to pour herself a glass. "Well, then why are you here?"

"Um," he stammered, "My dad said to tell you that we're taking you to Diagon Alley on Tuesday." Charlotte took a drink out of the glass.

"Why isn't my mum taking me?"

Draco shrugged. "I think she went out of town this morning. That's what my dad was saying anyway." He looked bitterly uncomfortable.

"Oh," Charlotte let slip, almost disenchanted. "Right," she tried again, achieving a more confident tone. "If that's it, then you can leave," she said, an air of dismissal in her voice.

Draco rolled his eyes and muttered, "Whatever you say, Princess." He then casually knocked a picture off of the table before slamming the door behind him.

Charlotte huffed and took in a deep breath, placing her glass down and walking over to where the picture had fallen.

The frame had fallen just right and the glass had a crack in it. Charlotte didn't want to make a fuss, so she just put it back on the table, but took a second glance at it. The picture looked old, and for a good reason, no one ever went into the billiard room. The picture was of her mother when she was at Hogwarts. Eleanor was wearing her uniform and smiling while a boy put his arms around her.

Charlotte had never seen this boy before, but in a way, he seemed familiar. He was about the same age as her mother in the picture and much taller. He had a nice, simple build to him and was wearing a yellow and black tie. His hair was a soft brown. There was something in his face that was familiar, but Charlotte couldn't quite place it.

As Monday night turned around, Charlotte was still finding herself staring at four different envelopes without a clue of which one to pick. Hogwarts was where her entire family went, but it was also where everyone knew everything about her family. Durmstrang was pureblood only, but it was such a solemn school (from what Teddy had learned from his grandfather). Beauxbatons was in France, so she knew the language, but she never really liked France. And then Salem. Salem was in _America_, but it was big and everything she had ever wanted, right?

She took in a deep breath, pushing three envelopes off of her desk and into her trash can. She grabbed a candle off her desk and tipped it into the bin, letting the blaze burn through the discarded parchment. She put the final envelope into her desk drawer, and then went to bed for a full night's sleep.


End file.
